Should you give your kids rewards for doing well and being good? Some people would say yes and other would say no, and there are certainly arguments to be had on both sides, which can make it hard to work out what you should do – what’s for the best?
As with anything to do with parenting, it’s always going to be a personal choice, and you’ll need to do what’s best for you and your children, but there are some benefits to rewarding your kids that it could be worth knowing because once you know what they are, it can help make a decision much easier to come to. With that in mind, here are the benefits of rewarding your kids – read on to find out more.
Encourage Good Habits
In its simplest terms, when you reward kids for doing something good and positive, that’s going to encourage them to do the same thing again and repeat whatever it was that earned them the reward in the first place. True, they’ll do it at least partly because they know they’ll get something in return, but is that such a bad thing? If it means they’ll develop good habits (because over time, those repetitive actions will become more ingrained), that’s got to be a good thing.
Plus, rewards can help kids learn why they need to do something, not just the fact that they have to do it. They’ll spot that some of their actions get rewards and some don’t, and they’ll start to understand why some things are crucial and some aren’t so important, or what a difference whatever it is they’re doing can make to their lives and the lives around them. Life is made up of habits, isn’t it? So if you’re finding that your child is having trouble getting into good habits, those rewards could be the key.
Build Self-Esteem
A parent has many jobs to do and many roles to play if they want to raise a happy, healthy, well-adjusted child and turn them into a happy, healthy, well-adjusted adult. Building their self-esteem has to be on the list of things to do and ways to help your kids, and giving them rewards for a job well done can be a great way to do just that.
The thing to remember is that when a child’s efforts are rewarded, they’ll be able to see not just that they’ve done the right thing, but that they’re valued too – what they’ve done is good, you’ve noticed it, and you’re happy about it. When you recognize all that with some kind of reward, which can be anything from extra time online to play Minesweeper to ice cream to a day out somewhere and so on, they’ll feel accomplished and proud of what they’ve done and they’ll keep on doing it. In the meantime, their belief in themselves and their abilities will grow massively.
Encourages Independence
Another job a parent has to do is to help their child become more independent, which sounds horrible but is really important. Why horrible? Well, you’ll want to keep your kids close and be with them all the time – it’s a natural thing for parents to want to do – so the idea of them going off and doing things on their own is scary and unpleasant. Why important? Well, at some point, your children will be old enough to live their own lives, and if they’ve got a good idea of how to do things for themselves and they’re not always looking to you for guidance or permission, they’ll be much more free to do whatever it is they feel is right and they won’t be held back (not that you’d do that on purpose, but you might do it accidentally just by being there so much).
Rewarding your child for good behavior and doing well, particularly when they’ve completed a chore or task in the home, is an ideal way to help them gain a little more independence early on, before they really need it. When children realize that their independent actions can lead to rewards, they’ll be more likely to take the initiative and just do things around the house or even outside in the ‘real world’, and they’ll be a lot more self-reliant as a result. That’s going to be so important for them in the future, and if it can start young with rewards as the starting point, that’s only going to help them – try it and you’ll see what we mean.